Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Smile: A Memoir

Smile: A Memoir

Ruhl, Sarah

Paperback

Biographies General

Publisher Price: $17.00

ISBN10: 1982150955
ISBN13: 9781982150952
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Published: Sep 27 2022
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.49
Height: 0.71 Width: 5.58 Depth: 8.36
Language: English
* A People Best Book of the Year * Time and The Washington Post's Most Anticipated List * Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence *

From the MacArthur genius, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and playwright, this captivating, insightful memoir (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) is an intimate account of Bell's palsy, facial paralysis, and motherhood--and a beautiful meditation on identity and how we see ourselves (Real Simple).

With a play opening on Broadway, and every reason to smile, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralyzed. She is assured that 90 percent of Bell's palsy patients experience a full recovery--like Ruhl's own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky ten percent. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in theater, living with facial paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior brings significant and specific challenges. So Ruhl begins an intense decade-long search for a cure while simultaneously grappling with the reality of her new face--one that, while recognizably her own--is incapable of accurately communicating feelings or intentions.

In a series of piercing, profound, and lucid meditations, Ruhl chronicles her journey as a patient, wife, mother, and artist. She explores chronic illness and medical uncertainty, the struggle of a body yearning to match its inner landscape, the pain of postpartum depression, the story of a marriage, being a playwright and working mom to three small children, and the desire for a resilient spiritual life in the face of illness.

An intimate and stunning (Publishers Weekly, starred review) examination of loss and reconciliation, Ruhl reminds us that a smile is not just a smile but a vital form of communication, of bonding, of what makes us human (The Washington Post). Brimming with insight, humility, and levity, Smile is a triumph by one of America's leading playwrights.

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